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John Oliver discusses the massive impact of the cybersecurity breach at Equifax (that lead to millions of leaked social security numbers) and their massively misguided attempts to mitigate the damage and cover up their mistakes:

when harvey was making money for everyone they all looked the other way, squashed stories, paid people off, etc. this only came out because his business was failing anyway. how many more predators are there out there who are still under the radar cuz they are making a lot of money for a lot of people.

this really makes me think about how i read so much of people's quotes and kind of sort them in the deluge of info we receive when hearing them actually say the words carries so much more weight and makes them even worse. her shit-eating grin the entire time

ya the video is WAY worse. she is so smiley, and is saying everything so purposefully that it is obvious she pre-wrote this answer in her head and is so fucking SMUG while answering it. like god damn, context my ass.

I had my identity stolen a few years ago. Aside from freezing your credit you should get your free copy from each of the bureaus so you can check them for any errors. I'd recommend getting one every four months. Equifax now, Transunion in four months, Experian four months after that, etc.

Also, as far as tax returns go, if you have actually had someone else trying to open false accounts in your name you can request a personal identity PIN. Basically, it means the IRS recognizes that you have been a victim of identity theft and run the risk of someone filing a false return, so the IRS will mail you a 6 digit PIN each year to include with your tax return so they know it is really you filing it. The PIN changes every year so you have to keep an eye out for the new one to come in the mail.

Getting your identity stolen really sucks and is super stressful. If it hasn't happened yet, freezing your credit is about all you can do. Make sure to record the PIN or password each bureau will require you to pick and store that info somewhere you can find it easily when you need to unfreeze.

It's a combo of people with money / status to keep the laws in place because it benefits them, most people aren't aware of how bad it is, and those who are can't get enough people involved to actually fight it without being shut down because people are struggling to make ends meet.

Every day I wonder how easy it is for me as an American to just move somewhere else and never look back.

The more I learn about the US, the more surprised I am that they actually became such an important nation. Because for an important nation like this, you'd expect a whole lot of smart, intelligent people. Beg to differ

Originally, Social Security numbers weren't supposed to be for anything other than Social Security. But gradually it became a widespread feature of the financial system precisely because it's a super-easy way to keep track of people, as there's a single central registry and every American citizen has one.

I signed up for the year of free credit monitoring. While they were no longer charging for it, the company they outsourced it to did sell my information to companies for advertising. I started getting all types of calls and emails trying to sell me stuff. I had to block one number and unsubscribe from a bunch of emails.

ugh great. To be honest I have been kind of ignoring it and I know that's not smart.

Congress called the Equifax assholes to testify and pointed out that they're making $ from their own incompetence, but then congress didn't actually do anything about it?! (presumably because the Repubs would block anything that punished the corporate perpetrators?)

I will almost never drag a woman's appearance - especially when there's so much else about her to criticize like in this case - but she is such a terrible person that I can't even feel too badly about this:

The whole time I was watching the video of her comments, I was trying to figure out who it was she reminded me of, and I finally realized it was this character from American Horror Story

ETA: Shit, that is huge! I'm so sorry, I don't know how to make it smaller